


the beast's burden isn't love

by ContraryBee



Series: Burden [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Healing, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 15:59:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14855783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ContraryBee/pseuds/ContraryBee
Summary: Kakashi and Mai have made it to Konoha, but nothing is the same and everything is delicate and breakable.





	the beast's burden isn't love

**Author's Note:**

> The aftermath of the first - love is a burden on beasts

#  _Day One_

 

Sarutobi knew from experience that Kakashi hated the hospital, and the hospital hated him. It was expected that Kakashi would perhaps make a fuss, try to escape, actually escape and worsen his injuries and have to be monitored day and night.

But physically throwing his doctors out the door, however? Not checking his strength, going immediately for the kill or the cripple? Absolutely refusing treatment, pacing like an animal, methodically tearing things like the sheets apart, carrying a scalpel as a weapon?

That wasn’t Kakashi.

The woman was also in the room, but it wasn’t the hostage situation Sarutobi would have expected. She was rather contained, as far as he could observe, staying in one place or walking calmly from one end of the room to the other, observing things. Kakashi didn’t let her near the door, but she also didn’t try to approach it. She wasn’t the frightened, meek, abused woman the report painted her as, and he thought it might be Genma’s bias residing there.

This woman was dangerous, and she was strong – mentally and physically, especially so for having survived such conditions. The conditions had done everything except break Kakashi, and yet this woman was seemingly untouched? Content?

No, Sarutobi puffed on his pipe, narrowing his eyes. It wasn’t like that. She was just as traumatized as Kakashi, but they reflected off one another. When Kakashi was pacing, Mai remained still and watched him. When Mai was pacing, Kakashi remained still and watched her. They met in the middle for naps, nightly sleep, and did their own mild workout routines together.

Absurdly, Sarutobi thought he was watching them as they had operated whilst in captivity, and it both angered and saddened the old man.

Sarutobi stood in an observational room in the hospital, several screens on the wall revealing the process of Kakashi’s ‘recovery’.

The hospital medics hadn’t been able to separate them, and so had merely shut them in the same room until further notice. Quite a breach of hospital protocol, but with that seal on Kakashi’s neck, nobody wanted to take chances.

On screen, Kakashi lounged on the bed like an indolent cat, somehow appearing lazy and unaware but also completely awake. The woman...Mai, Sarutobi remembered, was humming quietly whilst combing her hair. He spent a moment to question how exactly she got her hands on a comb, but the look on her face wasn't suspicious nor were her actions. They looked...well they looked like Black Ops agents slowly shaking off the effects of a long term mission. Good agents would submerge themselves so fully so wholly in their subterfuge that they had to dig themselves back out.

What worried Sarutobi, was that Kakashi's subterfuge wasn't a false identity...it was _him_.

How can one dig themselves out of their own baser instincts? Sarutobi knew he should have pulled Kakashi from Anbu a long time ago. The man's ten year hallmark passed whilst he had been in captivity, and that's eight years longer than the normal term.

Kakashi had requested it though, and for all Sarutobi's heartfelt doubts, Kakashi was good at it. So he'd let it slide. And then Sparrow had been turned in by her own squad, Dog-Taicho missing and all trails leading to nothing.

Everything was made worse when Ibiki found that seal on her tongue, and Sarutobi's laziness had come back to bite him.

He thought he had lost his best operative for over two months, and yet when a miracle happened and Genma – who had taken it upon himself to find his Taicho or die – unearthed the underground. Kakashi was being advertised like meat. Who wanted to buy the Last Hatake? 'Well trained' and sealed, he was prime meat, and  the horrors Genma had reported...Sarutobi didn't even want to think of Kakashi (while one of the best agents he'd ever had, was also one of the most delicate mentally) being forced to fight for his life without chakra and in one of the worse underground operations he'd ever heard about.

The rest was in front of him, Kakashi was always on edge, was whittled down to his bare minimum, physically and mentally, and yet he was strong and able, aware of himself and his surroundings, capable of amusement and anger and protectiveness.

But it was all because of the woman.

Inoichi had explained it to Sarutobi as something very real and very vulnerable being wrapped up in obsession and need. Whatever real feelings that occurred in that place were exacerbated, exaggerated and blown into something so unhealthy and dysfunctional, Sarutobi was amazed it hadn't exploded in their faces yet.

But then, Mai crawled onto the bed with Kakashi, a content smile crossing her face as she very obviously enjoyed the give of the mattress and the soft sheets. Bypassing the extra space though, she drew up onto Kakashi and rested herself over top him. Sarutobi raised an eyebrow when Kakashi merely shifted a leg and put a hand on her back. Reaching up, Mai slipped her fingers under Kakashi's mask and pulled it down.

Both Sarutobi's eyebrows raised, when Kakashi actually quirked a half smile in response. They were so _comfortable_ together.

 It was a little strange to see Kakashi so close to another human being, doubly so that that person was a civilian woman.

Sarutobi hadn't gotten Kakashi's report yet, but he thought he would need it to make sense of any of this. It was against regulations, but Sarutobi thought that he could let the two wind down a little more before separating them.

It was the least he could do for the boy.

For his part, Kakashi thought he should feel more irritated that they were being kept in a room. Anyone else would maybe thing of it as trading one prison for another, but the sheer difference in quality made this four walled white hospital room – empty save for a small bathroom (no mirror), a bed and a visitor’s chair – made it seem like a vacation.

Mai was enjoying it too, and Kakashi remembered how absurdly vulnerable they had been in the forest. It was a good feeling to be back in Konoha, a better one to see Mai unravel herself under his very eyes.

When he'd woken, Kakashi had found Mai clinging onto him with such force he had had bruises. They had tried to take her away, but without causing bodily harm (or knocking her out), they hadn't been able to separate her.

He was pleased about it, but knew he shouldn't be. It was so easy to indulge though, so easy to simply reach out and touch her if he wanted to, that he didn't stop himself from trying.

As the time passed and they were brought food three times a day, specially formulated nutritious food with water and juice, their habits changed.

The door was not the entrance and exit of pain and fear, the walls were white and clean not caged and rock, they were warm, and had regular access to hygienic services. A difference like night and ay, and yet they still kept close to one another.

At night, Kakashi held Mai close and thought, long and hard. His lips would find purchase in her hair, on her forehead and cheeks. She would peek open and eye and smile cheekily and her eyes would taunt him, test him, her lips would part and he'd be so ready, so interested. But they would dance around it and they never kissed.

It became a game, and the resulting anticipation was almost more enjoyable than what Kakashi expected to be a very satisfying kiss.

Kakashi damned himself to thinking of _more_ , but it was a small voice in the back of his head.  Easily ignorable.

Mai murmured something, halfway into a mid-day nap and stretched a little, her leg seeking its way between his. Her hands were tucked tightly into his mask she he couldn't even draw it up again, one slim little finger resting over his mouth.

His eye flickered to the small, almost negligible black dot in the corner of the room, the camera, and wondered who was watching. Their reprieve wouldn't be able to last long, but the continuing quiet and clean air and bright lights were subduing the monster Kakashi had become.

At least, he thought so. It could very much also be Mai's continuing relaxation, the way her hair shone when it was clean, the way her skin seemed to glow more and more each day.

Gods, Kakashi was _ruined_.

_Day Five_

Finally, they were getting restless. Sarutobi thought it might be prudent to put their attentions onto something other than each other now, now that simply luxuriating in Konoha's hospital wasn't enough for them.

This would involve delicate handling, and that was why Yamanaka Inoichi and Hyuuga Hisa were going to come in and meet their new charges. Inoichi had met Kakashi before, but fourteen year old Kakashi was much different than twenty four year old Kakashi.

Hyuuga Hisa was renowned for her abilities in the mental ward as well, a rare Hyuuga kunoichi who refused to learn the traditional taijutsu and instead focused her abilities on healing.

Sarutobi had rewarded her dive by working her into the web work of the hospital until she was entirely engulfed by it. Hiashi had been annoyed, but Sarutobi sort of lived to make the man respond with more facial expressions that stern or mildly annoyed.

He was old, he had to get his fun when he could. Sue him.

For courtesy's sake, Sarutobi knocked on the door. Nobody answered.

Unbothered, he entered with Inoichi and Hisa behind him, the Anbu in the walls keeping a sharp eye.

Mai had stood to meet them, hands demurely clasped in front of her. Somehow she made the hospital scrubs looks regal, and held her head high as they entered. Kakashi, for his part, stayed seated on the bed. This was perhaps a calculated decision, as the anbu were on a nervous hair trigger, any quick unexpected movement from their Dog-taicho might cause a fearful gut reaction.

“Hokage-sama.” Kakashi greeted, unconcerned, and Mai gave a courtly curtsey, low, but not too low.

What an interesting match these two made. 

“Kakashi-kun. I am glad to see you in better health. We were all very worried about you.”

Something flickered in the man’s eye that Sarutobi couldn’t identify. Kakashi ducked his head at the thought but said nothing more.

“And it is a wonder you have been brought to us, Miss, please accept my full condolences for the trauma you have undergone.” Sarutobi spoke directly to the woman, and noticed out of the corner of his eye how Kakashi tilted towards her. Mai licked her lips.

“Thank you, Hokage-sama.”

Sarutobi didn’t think he had heard her speak yet, Genma had said she was near mute but it didn’t seem for lack of ability.

“This is Yamanaka Inoichi, and this is Hyuuga Hisa. Kakashi-kun you will recognize Inoichi-san, he will be helping you reintegrate with the jounin population. Hyuuga-san will similarly be attending to you, Mai-san. Do you have a last name for our records?”

Mai didn’t move, and looked like she didn’t want to speak.

“Hiboshi, Hokage-sama.” Hiboshi, Hiboshi, now that was familiar.

Oh yes.

“I see.” Sarutobi looked at her through his eyebrows. “You are aware that we have a dated mission in our logs that asks for your return to your family, Hiboshi-sama. A missing princess of the Daimyo’s court, no matter how far removed in relation, warrants an A-rank.”

Kakashi very obviously didn’t twitch but he became quite still.  He hadn’t known.

“I suppose too,” Mai said quietly, eyes fixed at Sarutobi’s chest level, “that the mission was requested by the same man who sold me to Okoro Tetsuo. My mother is dead, my father is dead, I am no longer a Hiboshi. I refuse the name.”

Her words were soft but resolute. Kakashi stood to his feet and flowed around the bed silently, taking up a stance behind Mai’s shoulder. She didn’t look at him, nor did she lean against him but the support was noted. Sarutobi felt Inoichi and Hisa’s attention sharpen over his shoulders, and so did Kakashi. He didn’t glower per se, but Kakashi did look steadily back at them, a warning and a statement all at once.

“You understand that you refuse the name you refuse the inheritance and all that your family passes down?”

“It has already been taken from me.”

Her dark eyes were solemn, her countenance subdued but she still stood with an iron spine. Sarutobi was impressed, but cautious. There’s no telling what horrors she had gone through, and PTSD was dangerous on a good day, even for civilians.

“Then I welcome you, Mai-san, to our village and I wish you the best in the world. Once Hisa-san discharges you, please make an appointment with me through the Hokage Tower help desk and we will sort out your Konoha citizenship.”

Mai’s eyes widened and she couldn’t help glancing up at him. The offer was generous, she realized, and even more so it came without obvious strings.

Of course Sarutobi had a few nebulous thoughts about keeping the lost princess safe and in Konoha’s hands, the A-rank mission had been deemed fraudulent regardless so there was little threat regarding the woman’s murderous uncle.

In fact, if Sarutobi remembered correctly there was a separate B-ranked mission involving sorting out the seemingly random ‘accidents’ (murders) in the Daimyo’s court that followed a paper trail straight to said uncle.

Mai would be safe here, and no matter what she chooses, her status will remain with her.

“Kakashi, if you would follow me please, we have your room set up on a different floor.” Inoichi broke in.

“Mai-san, if you could follow me as well.” Hisa stepped out of the way of the door, and Sarutobi stood back to watch their reactions. Kakashi knew it had been coming, but he still jerked his hand towards hers, gut reaction to grab hold and never let go. Mai swallowed, and reached for him too, but they had enough self-control to limit contact.

Her fingers brushed the back of his knuckles, both their hands littered with healed and healing scars.

She walked forward, and despite the clear signs of her fear and anxiety, the shake in her hands, the tears bunching in her eyes, the way she swallowed, she didn’t look back.

It was almost romantic, Sarutobi mused as he watched Mai being escorted out of the room, Kakashi’s eye glued to her back even when she was beyond the walls and out of his sight. His fists clenched with audible pops, and an Anbu made the mistake of shifting.

Horse, again, Sarutobi pursed his lips.

Kakashi’s attention focused immediately on Horse, pinning him in his concealed genjutsu with an accuracy that was frightening for a man without chakra or chakra sensing to help.

 _Jiraiya_ , Sarutobi sighed in his mind _, hurry your ass up_.

So far, Kakashi had not broken his control in the presence of the Hokage, but that was no guarantee that he wouldn’t when his patience stretched too far. At least he recognized them, that provided at least some guise of safety.

It did not last long.


End file.
